A Day in the Life of a Priest: Father Joseph Vogel
A Spotlight on Fr. Joseph Vogel
What is a pastor’s life like? Fr. Joe Vogel graciously agreed to give you a glimpse into his day to day activities as the pastor of a new parish.
Fr. Vogel’s day always begins with a holy hour in the morning. Prayer before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is very important to him. This often takes place around 6:30 or 7 when school is not in session. When school is in session, he leads a quick prayer with the principal and teachers at 7:25. On Wednesdays, Fr. Vogel celebrates Mass for the Catholic school children at 8 am. After morning Mass, Father generally enjoys socializing with people over coffee and rolls.
Paperwork consumes a good portion of Fr. Vogel’s morning. He gets into the office in the morning and usually tackles paperwork such as marriage documents and general correspondence. At 9:30, he gathers with the staff to pray Morning Prayer. Not only is Morning Prayer a good way to prayerfully start the day, but Fr. Vogel finds it helps to build a sense of community as staff members intercede for their grandmother or husband who’s sick.
Following Morning Prayer, Fr. Vogel often has a series of appointments with people. These appointments are generally for marriage preparation, spiritual direction, and other needs such as RCIA preparation.
Around noon, Father will have lunch. Normally, he prepares his own meals. At times, people will prepare some food and freeze it for him, but most of the time he’s on his own. Sometimes Fr. Vogel will have lunch with the school kids in the cafeteria. Fr. Vogel likes to exercise after lunch or take a nap. One form of exercise he enjoys is riding a bicycle.
Since mornings and evenings are generally quite busy, Fr. Joe likes to make an occasional appointment for himself during the afternoon in order to have time to pray, reflect, and re-group. However, most of the time, Father is quite busy during the afternoon with tons of appointments that last until dinner time.
Following dinner, Fr. Vogel often has quite a few appointments and meetings. Meetings can be with all kinds of groups such as the school board, the Sioux Falls pastors meeting, Catholic Hospitals, the finance committee, etc. On Wednesdays, Father can be quite busy teaching Confirmation students, visiting classrooms, or hearing confessions.
Other things that keep Fr. Vogel busy are weddings, confessions, hospital visits, and such priestly duties. Before baptizing children, this pastor has the unusual practice of visiting the family to get to know them. In addition to “priestly” activities, Father has to attend to running the parish. Sometimes this can mean handling the bumps of life like tinkering with a broken water heater. Such is a typical day in the life of Fr. Joseph Vogel, pastor of St. Katherine Drexel.
In addition to talking about his hectic
schedule, Fr. Vogel touched on his favorite priestly duties.
They are, he said, “Confessions and daily